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Sunday, 30 December 2012

Fulham 1 - Swansea 2 Stats and Chalkboards

It certainly wasn't a comfortable victory, but clinical finishing from a couple of goalkeeping mistakes resulted in yet another away win.

I don't normally include the chalkboard of total passing by team as they often look like a big mass of lines, but have included it below for its rarity with Swansea only having 41% of possession, even under the 'relatively' more direct approach under Laudrup Swansea usually have the majority of the ball:

Passes by Side, Fulham with plenty of the ball in the Swansea half with most of Swansea's passing coming down the right

In terms of attempts at goal, Fulham had 23 to Swansea's 10 (but fewer attempts on target) and had more attempts in the first 15 minutes of the second half (11) than Swansea had all match.

Attempts by Side, Ruiz had the most overall with 7 (4 on target) and Danny Graham managed 4 attempts (all on target)

Looking at where the ball was intercepted by each team shows how Fulham often won the ball back within the Swansea half:

Interceptions by side, similar totals but Fulham winning the ball often in the middle third

In keeping with this level of pressure, Fulham rarely allowed Tremmel an easy pass out of defence with the ball usually going long and most of the time going back to Fulham, repeating the cycle of pressure-clearance -pressure:

Passing by goalkeeper, Stockdale having twice the pass success rate partly due to a greater proportion of short passes

In terms of player performances from Fulham Ruiz was impressive and most things went through him and any team with him and Berbatov will end up nowhere near the relegation zone even if their recent form isn't great.

For Swansea, it shows the level of competition in the side that the goalkeeper and two of the back four from the Reading can be changed with little disruption (along with Tiendalli playing on the left as opposed to the right in previous games).

I also really like the option of being able to switch Tiendalli to the right and play Rangel at right wing, it's not something you'd want to start a game with but offers both extra defensive cover if required and also added aerial ability for defending set pieces and also as an out ball for long clearances. You can tinker too much sometimes especially within games, but in the squad there's a greater level of flexibility than there was last season both in terms of personnel and the 'philosophy' of the manager.

Dyer had arguably his best game for some time and highlighted one of the flaws in taking some of these stats as gospel. When I came to look at the take-ons, I was amazed to see Dyer had 0 successful out of 3 attempts even though he goes past a player in the lead up to the first goal. Unlike a pass, a take-on is a more subjective thing, if you start to go past a player and then pass, it may be that technically speaking you haven't gone past your opponent but what you have done is create enough disruption to allow a meaningful attack.